By LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Updated 10:00 pm, Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Alleging that the act was a contract killing, King County prosecutors have accused three men of slaying a 36-year-old man in revenge for his helping police bust a marijuana grow.

In charging documents filed Wednesday, prosecutors claim Hoang Nguyen was executed in front of his wife after Nguyen ran afoul of the purported leader of a Seattle-area marijuana trafficking gang.

According to police statements, Nguyen and his wife had parked outside the Riverton View apartment complex when, on Jan. 7, 2007, a hooded, masked man approached them. Locking eyes with Nguyen's wife, the killer motioned for her to be silent and approached the car's driver's side door.

As Nguyen stepped from the car, the killer told him to place his coffee cup on the ground, according to police. While Nguyen bent down, the shooter shot him once in the back of the head then ran from the area.

Her husband dead, the woman told police someone had attempted to kill Nguyen two weeks earlier at the Lu Quan Cafe in Seattle. That attempt, the woman said, had failed only because the gunman's pistol jammed.

As the investigation continued, detectives learned that Nguyen had been in a long-standing dispute with the 42-year-old leader of the Young Seattle Boyz gang, identified by police as Quy Dinh Nguyen.

Quy Dinh Nguyen, police contend, operated numerous marijuana grow houses around the Seattle area and was involved in an earlier shooting that left two people seriously injured.

Among other allegations, police contend Quy Dinh Nguyen had a man pistol whipped at the Rain City Cafe in Seattle after the victim removed several illegal gambling machines from the restaurant. He remains under indictment in U.S. District Court on federal allegations of marijuana trafficking.

Among those injured in an earlier shooting for which the purported gang leader's brother was convicted was a good friend of Hoang Nguyen, Seattle Detective Timothy Renihan said in court documents. In retribution for the shooting, Renihan said, Hoang Nguyen reported a grow house associated with the gang to police.

Speaking with an informant, investigators were told that Quy Dinh Nguyen had conspired with a gangland associate, Le Nhu Le, to hire a third man to kill Nguyen. That man, prosecutors claim, was Jerry Henry Thomas, III, a 23-year-old laborer who worked at a warehouse with Quy Dinh Nguyen.

When Thomas failed to kill Hoang Nguyen at the restaurant, the informant allegedly told police, Quy Dinh Nguyen arranged for Thomas to again attempt the killing outside Hoang Nguyen's home.

"The (informant) told detectives that following the incident at the Lu Quan, but before the murder, he had several conversations with Quy during which Quy admitted that he was angry at Hoang for 'having a big mouth,'" Detective Renihan said in court documents. "Quy also told the (informant) that Hoang was lucky and that he would let him enjoy the New Year before making another attempt on his life."

Already jailed on other charges, prosecutors have asked that Le, Thomas and Quy Dinh Nguyen be held on $3 million bail each. Each has been charged with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and first-degree murder.